Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Conservatives lead in latest poll

THE Federal Opposition has been warned not to get too excited about the latest Newspoll which puts it ahead of Labor for the first time since 2006.

Kevin Rudd's personal satisfaction rating has dropped the most in the shortest time in the 20-year history of Newspoll surveys, and for the first time since the election Labor no longer has a clear lead over either the Coalition or the Greens on the issue of climate change, The Australian reported.

Mr Rudd's previous standing as being seen to be "decisive and strong" also fell significantly and Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is considered almost equal with the Prime Minister in his grasp of major policy issues.

After weeks of dramatic policy reversals and broken promises, culminating last week in Mr Rudd's decision to put off his Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme until at least 2013, the Government's primary vote has plunged eight percentage points to just 35 per cent. The Coalition's primary support has risen three points to 43 per cent.

According to the latest Newspoll, taken last weekend exclusively for The Australian and polling almost 1200 voters, the extraordinary shifts in the primary vote mean the two-party-preferred support for Labor has dropped to 49 per cent while the Coalition's has risen from 46 to 51 per cent.

The Prime Minister's personal satisfaction rating, down 11 points from 50 per cent two weeks ago to 39 per cent last weekend, is the lowest he has had as Labor leader, and it is the first time he has had a negative satisfaction rating, after dissatisfaction with him jumped nine points to 50 per cent.

Labor's primary vote, at 35 per cent, is at its lowest since March 2006 when Labor was in Opposition.

"Labor's taken a hit," Newspoll boss Martin O'Shannessy said today. But Mr O'Shannessy said the big turnaround should be treated with caution, saying it fell in the "rogue poll" range. "We think these numbers are probably telling us there is a protest vote ... probably against the shelving of the ETS," he said.

When asked what advice he would be giving Mr Abbott about the poll, Mr O'Shannessy told Sky News: "Don't get too excited, we haven't seen all of those (Labor) votes coming across to the Coalition." Instead, the Greens and independents were picking up much of the dissatisfaction with the Government. "That's a pretty classic sign of a protest vote," Mr O'Shannessy said.

The last time the Coalition was in front on the two-party-preferred basis, according to preference flows at the last election, was in August 2006 when Kim Beazley was opposition leader and John Howard was prime minister.

Although Labor's vote dropped heavily after the Government announced it would cancel the proposed new home roofing insulation scheme and spend $1 billion fixing up the old failed scheme, drop its CPRS this year and lift the tax on a packet of cigarettes by $2.16, the Coalition's vote did not lift to the same degree.

Satisfaction with the way Mr Abbott is doing his job as Opposition Leader dropped a little, from 46 to 45 per cent, and dissatisfaction rose back to where it was a month ago, to 43 per cent. Because of Mr Rudd's fall in favour, Mr Abbott is now the best placed Opposition Leader on the question of better prime minister.

Treasurer Wayne Swan said tough decisions taken by the Government over the past fortnight were the reason it had taken a hit in the polls. "We've taken some tough decisions in recent weeks, particularly the decision to increase the excise on cigarettes or tobacco," Mr Swan said. "That's what governments have to do. Governments have to govern in the national interest."

Opposition frontbencher George Brandis said the shift was "very striking", and that here had been a "sharp collapse" in public respect for Mr Rudd. "We've been saying all along, sooner or later, the public were bound to wake up to this bloke," he told Sky News. "He is a shallow opportunist."

IT'S the five-letter word that police should from now on shrug-off. Why? Because a local court magistrate in Sydney ruled yesterday that the word "prick" was part of the every-day vernacular as he cleared a university student of an offensive language charge.

Waverley Local Court magistrate Robbie Williams made his comments during a hearing for science student Henry Grech, 22, who was charged following a heated argument with Senior Constable Adam Royds at Bondi Junction train station last year.

Mr Williams said he wasn't satisfied that a "reasonable person" would be offended by the word prick in general conversation. "I consider the word prick is of a less derogatory nature than other words and it is in common usage in this country," he said.

"A police officer on a number of occurrences would hear words like this used on a much worse scale. Police officers would be used to this type of language."

Mr Williams said the spectrum of acceptable offensive vocabulary in society was a "moving feast". "The words also take on different meaning. It is clear that there are some words which could be considered to be on the offensive list," he said. "As to whether the word prick falls into that category must be taken in the context of which it was used."

NSW Police Association secretary Peter Remfrey said the legal system should not be making police "second-class citizens". "We don't think it is satisfactory for the courts to sanction this sort of language against police officers," he said.

"Police shouldn't be punching bags for society, nor should they be open to this sort of abuse. One only has to contemplate the response of a magistrate if somebody called them a prick in their court. The magistrates should adopt the same approach to all people in the criminal justice system."

Senior Constable Royds stopped Mr Grech on the station's concourse area on November 5 last year after Mr Grech allegedly jumped a barrier. The pair had an aggressive exchange of words before Mr Grech told the officer that he would "see him in court" if he continued to harass him. Mr Grech then called Senior Constable Royds "a prick".

Mr Grech, who is student at the University of NSW, said he was surprised the matter had been taken to court. "When I used the word I didn't think it was offensive and didn't think it would end up in court," Mr Grech said. "I'm happy I got off."

Mr Grech's lawyer Nick Hanna used previous cases dating back to 1951 to compare other cases where magistrates and judges had dismissed offensive language charges.

He referenced decisions from court cases in NSW, Western Australia and South Australia where magistrates ruled that words including "s***" and "f***" had not been used in "an offensive manner and without sexual overtones".

Police prosecutors are unlikely to appeal against Mr Williams' decision.

Bullying and mistreatment of staff by ambulance bosses seems to be endemic and ineradicable. Inquiry after inquiry has not budged it

Paramedic Al Qvist had been in the job for about five years when he plunged into deep depression. He had already endured a toxic combination of attending shocking accident scenes, being bullied and harassed by colleagues, and facing an unsympathetic, even hostile, management.

But the tipping point was in 1995 when he attended the scene of an AIDS patient who had jumped in front of a train in the Kings Cross tunnel. The man's body was severed below his pelvis and he appeared to be dead. When Mr Qvist shone his torch onto the emaciated body, the man's eyes rolled towards him and he said: "I want to die." Mr Qvist was covered in blood and was worried he had contracted HIV.

"The Ambulance didn't show any type of consideration or empathy at all," his wife, Kathy Qvist, said. "He didn't get debriefed and they were just expected to get back on and do their job."

In the following weeks he was badly assaulted by two patients. Mr Qvist asked for counselling but was instead sent to be psychiatrically assessed for his job suitability. He has never again asked for counselling despite three suicide attempts.

"He was a mess and for a while after that he went down into black places, basically, very dark places," Mrs Qvist said. "Al felt very isolated and very helpless."

She got rid of his rifle after he sat in the back room of the house with the barrel in his mouth.

Mr Qvist has not been interviewed for this story as staff are not permitted to speak to the media.

By 1999, he felt he desperately needed time off, but was refused, Mrs Qvist said. He overdosed on prescription drugs while home alone with his daughters, then aged seven and eight.

Mrs Qvist said his workers' compensation claim was rejected. "They said it's not our fault," she said. "I find it unbelievable. The Ambulance Service is an important part of the health system yet it just doesn't understand mental health."

The Ambulance Service did not respond to the Herald's questions about Mr Qvist's treatment, but said it takes the mental health of its staff very seriously. Mr Qvist has worked across the Hunter, most recently at Hamilton, Stroud and the Central West, and had a seven-year stint in Sydney, during which he had to commute from his home in Newcastle.

Again, in 2007, he was traumatised by the job when he almost drowned saving an elderly woman in the Newcastle floods. He still has nightmares and such a deep fear of water he carries an inflatable life jacket on wet days. He has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

In 2008, around the anniversary of the floods, he again tried to commit suicide. He had time off work and was recovering, but last year had a breakdown and was admitted to a psychiatric unit after a station manager allegedly abused him and physically threatened him.

The Ambulance Service, seven months later, is still investigating.

Mr Qvist is on a high dose of anti-depressant medication and works at a station 200 kilometres from home. He is due to receive a bravery award this month for the flood rescue.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today claimed that the Rudd Resource tax was just another in a long line of taxes helping to depopulate rural Australia.

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that depopulation of the outback started with the fringe benefits tax and the removal of accelerated depreciation, both of which penalise companies who provide housing for employees.

“Every government since then has accelerated the drift to the coastal and capital cities.

“The heavy burdens of excessive fuel taxes, coal royalties, rail freights and infrastructure bottlenecks have for years restricted the development of the outback resource industry. Only deposits that are rich or close to the coast can pay their way, which is why the Galilee Basin has been undeveloped for so long.

“The vegetation control bans, water mismanagement and growth of carbon credit forests are depressing agriculture and will depopulate rural towns.

“Humans and their industries are also prohibited from vast areas of our land and sea sterilised by a confusing mixture of exclusion zones. And the lack and high cost of outback infrastructure has fed the fly-in mentality of industry and governments.

“Had the money wasted just on roof insulation been spent on new infrastructure, Australia would be a more decentralised and productive place.

“The Rudd Resource tax is yet another centralising force, depressing outback industry and stimulating the population of drones around the government honey pots in Canberra. It increases the risk that the belated rush to build infrastructure will leave new trains without freight and new ports without ships.

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Background

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

Most academics are lockstep Leftists so readers do sometimes doubt that I have the qualifications mentioned above. Photocopies of my academic and military certificates are however all viewable here

For overseas readers: The "ALP" is the Australian Labor Party -- Australia's major Leftist party. The "Liberal" party is Australia's major conservative political party.

In most Australian States there are two conservative political parties, the city-based Liberal party and the rural-based National party. But in Queensland those two parties are amalgamated as the LNP.

Again for overseas readers: Like the USA, Germany and India, Australia has State governments as well as the Federal government. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).

For American readers: A "pensioner" is a retired person living on Social Security

"Digger" is an honorific term for an Australian soldier

Another lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is an example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

Another bit of Australian: Any bad writing or messy anything was once often described as being "like a pakapoo ticket". In origin this phrase refers to a ticket written with Chinese characters - and thus inscrutably confusing to Western eyes. These tickets were part of a Chinese gambling game called "pakapoo".

Two of my ancestors were convicts so my family has been in Australia for a long time. As well as that, all four of my grandparents were born in the State where I was born and still live: Queensland. And I am even a member of the world's second-most condemned minority: WASPs (the most condemned is of course the Jews -- which may be why I tend to like Jews). So I think I am as Australian as you can get. I certainly feel that way. I like all things that are iconically Australian: meat pies, Vegemite, Henry Lawson etc. I particularly pride myself on my familiarity with the great Australian slanguage. I draw the line at Iced Vo-Vos and betting on the neddies, however. So if I cannot comment insightfully on Australian affairs, who could?

My son Joe

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

I am an army man. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies or mining companies

Although I have been an atheist for all my adult life, I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak.

The Rt. Rev. Phil Case (Moderator of the Presbyterian church in Queensland) is a Pharisee, a hypocrite, an abomination and a "whited sepulchre".

English-born Australian novellist, Patrick White was a great favourite in literary circles. He even won a Nobel prize. But I and many others I have spoken to find his novels very turgid and boring. Despite my interest in history, I could only get through about a third of his historical novel Voss before I gave up. So why has he been so popular in literary circles? Easy. He was a miserable old Leftist coot, and, incidentally, a homosexual. And literary people are mostly Leftists with similar levels of anger and alienation from mainstream society. They enjoy his jaundiced outlook, his dissatisfaction, rage and anger.

Would you believe that there once was a politician whose nickname was "Honest"? "Honest" Frank Nicklin M.M. was a war hero, a banana farmer and later the conservative Premier of my home State of Queensland in the '60s. He was even popular with the bureaucracy and gave the State a remarkably tranquil 10 years during his time in office. Sad that there are so few like him.

Revered Labour Party leader Gough Whitlam was a very erudite man so he cannot have been unaware of the similarities of his famous phrase “the Party, the platform, the people” with an earlier slogan: "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer". It's basically the same slogan in reverse order.

Australia's original inhabitants were a race of pygmies, some of whom survived into modern times in the mountainous regions of the Atherton tableland in far North Queensland. See also here. Below is a picture of one of them taken in 2007, when she was 105 years old and 3'7" tall

Julia Gillard, a failed feminist flop. She was given the job of Prime Minister of Australia but her feminist preaching was so unpopular that she was booted out of the job by her own Leftist party. Her signature "achievements" were the carbon tax and the mining tax, both of which were repealed by the next government.

The "White Australia Policy: "The Immigration Restriction Act was not about white supremacy, racism, or the belief that whites were higher up the evolutionary tree than the coloured races. Rather, it was designed to STOP the racist exploitation of non-whites (all of whom would have been illiterate peasants practicing religions and cultures anathema to progressive democracy) being conscripted into a life of semi-slavery in a coolie-worked plantation economy for the benefit of the absolute monarchs, hereditary aristocracy and the super-wealthy companies and share-holders of the northern hemisphere.

A great little kid

In November 2007, a four-year-old boy was found playing in a croc-infested Territory creek after sneaking off pig hunting alone with four dogs and a puppy. The toddler was found five-and-a-half hours after he set off from his parents' house playing in a creek with the puppy. Amazingly, Daniel Woditj also swam two creeks known to be inhabited by crocs during his adventurous romp. Mr Knight said that after walking for several kilometres, Daniel came to a creek and swam across it. Four of his dogs "bailed up" at the creek but the youngster continued on undaunted with his puppy to a second creek. Mr Knight said Daniel swam the second croc-infested creek and walked on for several more kilometres. "Captain is a hard bushman and Daniel is following in his footsteps. They breed them tough out bush."

A great Australian: His eminence George Pell. Pictured in devout company before his elevation to Rome

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here

About Me

I am a 5'10" tall, jocular former university teacher aged 70 at the time of writing in early 2014 who still has a fair bit of hair. I am Australian born of working class origins and British ancestry. My doctorate is in psychology but I taught mainly sociology (Research Methods) in my 14 years as a university teacher. In High Schools I taught economics. I have taught in both traditional and "progressive" (low discipline) High Schools. My main interests are blogging, classical music, history, the stockmarket, current affairs and languages. I have been married four times to four fine women with whom I am still on amicable terms. I have one son born in 1987. I am totally non-sporting and have never owned a firearm. My brother has enough guns for the whole family. I did however enjoy my weapons training in the Army.
Fuller biographical notes here